Basecamp touched off a firestorm on social media and in the tech press recently when co-founder Jason Fried announced six “directional changes” to company policies, including “No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account…People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can’t happen where the work happens anymore.”

According to The Verge, it all began due to a list of names. “Around 2009, Basecamp customer service representatives began keeping a list of names that they found funny… Many of the names were of American or European origin. But others were Asian, or African, and eventually the list — titled “Best Names Ever” — began to make people uncomfortable. What once had felt like an innocent way to blow off steam, amid the ongoing cultural reckoning over speech and corporate responsibility, increasingly looked inappropriate, and often racist.”

When Fried interceded with his announcement, the Twitterverse exploded, as did the online press (“Basecamp sees mass employee exodus after CEO bans political discussions,”said Tech Crunch), although Fried did not ban political discussions: he merely banned them at work.

That’s why they call it ‘work.’

While Coinbase announced a similar policy back in October, we can’t help but wonder if Basecamp’s directional change was particularly shocking or even worrisome, given that founders Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have written several books about the changing workplace, including a New York Times best-seller (Rework) and Remote: Office Not Required, published in 2013, which Amazon described as “The classic guide to working from home and why we should embrace a virtual office.” 2013, Gracie. Long before Covid came along.

We also can’t help but be somewhat amused by all of the bruhaha, especially in light of the fact that it came at around the same time that the leader of the free world was permanently banned from Facebook – which didn’t create nearly the stir that the Basecamp decision did. We know that tech employees tend to have elevated opinions of themselves and their place and influence in the world, but seriously? Strange how when the shoe is on the other foot, it’s perceived as something of an injustice, to the point where around a third of the Basecamp employees resigned. With a generous six-month severance package, we might add, and they’ll no doubt have no trouble getting employment elsewhere, just as Basecamp will no doubt have no problem replacing them.

Employees in charge…

Although, one does have to wonder if potential employers of the dearly departed might consider somewhere in their minds, that those former Basecamp employees believe that part of their job is to dictate corporate policy. Trust us, that will be a consideration. Always need to mind those double-edged swords.

Which may be why they were given six-month severance packages: they may need it.

Entitlement and the New Normal

We’re going to mention that word that seems to have disappeared from the patois for a while, but this latest Basecamp debacle does bring it back to mind, although we’ve not seen it mentioned: Entitlement. Voiced or not, it’s clearly still there in the minds and attitudes of at least a segment of the working world. The social media platforms have certainly given everyone a voice – provided that what you say fall within the dictates of what the platform providers see fit, which, and pay attention tech press, in case you missed the memo, doesn’t suddenly necessarily give employees the power to effect corporate policy. It has no doubt swayed advertisers, who are certainly more sensitive to public opinion, but all of the negative articles, for better or for worse, have not impacted Amazon sales at all.

“No forgetting what we do here,” Fried wrote as his last point in the company’s directional changes. “We make project management, team communication, and email software. We are not a social impact company…We don’t have to solve deep social problems, chime in publicly whenever the world requests our opinion on the major issues of the day, or get behind one movement or another…These are all important topics, but they’re not our topics at work…Employees are free to take up whatever cause they want, support whatever movements they’d like, and speak out on whatever horrible injustices are being perpetrated on this group or that. But that’s their business, not ours. We’re in the business of making software, and a few tangential things that touch that edge. We’re responsible for ourselves. That’s more than enough for us.”

 

“Basecamp is a technology company that survived the internet boom and bust,” Real Clear Markets wrote. “It survived the 2008 recession. And it got through the Covid-19 pandemic. The company has always done things differently – and in 2021, that means asking staff to put the company, their colleagues, and customers before their personal desires” noting that Fried and Hansson didn’t fire anyone who disagreed with them on eliminating company-wide politics and rather went above and beyond by offering severances to help staff who didn’t fit the company culture find a better fit.”

Indeed there was not one firing, with the possible exception, given that Fried and Hansson have authored seminal books on the future of work, of that possible next shot across the bow. Onward and forward.